SNB & CHF

Hildebrand Keystone/Peter Klaunzer The Swiss government has nominated Philipp Hildebrand, a former head of the country’s central bank, to lead the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). “His experience in the highest levels of the private and public sectors, both in Switzerland and internationally, make him the ideal candidate for this prestigious position,” Economics Minister Guy Parmelin told a news conference on Wednesday. “This candidacy...

Journalistic propaganda is a powerful instrument of indoctrination. Without evidence, foul ideas can easily penetrate mainstream discourse. For instance, recently it has become fashionable to posit that slavery is America’s original sin. To sensible people, this is a risible claim, because there is nothing particularly American about slavery. But revisiting the history of slavery in non-Western societies in Asia and Africa would do little to change the minds of...

Swiss Franc The Euro has fallen by 0.11% to 1.0681 EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, October 29(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates Overview: The spreading virus that is shutting down large parts of Europe, while the US is reluctant to return to lockdowns and refuses to have a nationwide requirement for masks in public hit risk assets yesterday. The S&P posted its largest decline in four-months yesterday (~3.5%), and...

The Dollar Index is a popular way to think about and trade “the dollar.”  However, it has become less relevant as a reflection of the dollar’s performance or representative of trade, capital flows, market capitalization.  Economists often use a trade-weighted basket, and the Federal Reserve’s real broad trade-weighted index is an input in official and private-sector forecasts. As an alternative, we present Bannockburn’s World Currency Index (BWCI).  It is...

© Ilzekalve | Dreamstime.com Levels of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies wane quite rapidly after infection, researchers from Imperial College London have found. The team, which measured SARS-CoV-2 antibody levels in 365,000 people between June and September saw a decline of 26% in the number testing positive for antibodies. At the start, antibodies were found in 6.0% of those tested with prick blood tests. During September the percentage was 4.4%, a drop of 26% over roughly 3...

© David Herraez | Dreamstime.com On 28 October 2020, Switzerland’s Federal Office of Public Health (FOPH) reported 8,616 new cases of SARS-CoV-2 infection over 24 hours, bringing the total to 135,658. Close to half of Switzerland’s laboratory-confirmed cases have been reported over the last two weeks (66,954). In addition, over the last two weeks, positivity – the percentage of tests coming back positive – has risen from 14% to 32%, a positivity rate higher than the...

Why did Murray Rothbard embrace populism and why did he think it could work to limit the power of the state? In short, Rothbard believed that a small elite had seized the power of the state to fleece and oppress the majority. Rothbard was in part basing his ideas on the historical narrative of the Democratic populists of the nineteenth century who formed the party of sound money, low taxes, and decentralized power. This laissez-faire party also managed to win a lot...

This isn’t about COVID. It’s been building since the end of August, a shift in mood, perception, and reality that began turning things several months before even then. With markets fickle yet again, a lot today, what’s going on here? What you’ll hear or have already heard is something about Europe and more lockdowns, fears about a second wave of the pandemic. No, that doesn’t fit the herdlike change in direction you can observe across many different markets (below)....

For all these reasons, the risks of systemic collapse are much higher than commonly anticipated. There’s an irony in discussing risk: since we all have an instinctive reaction to visible risk, we think we understand it. But alas, we don’t, especially when the risk is invisible and systemic. We even misjudge extremely visible risk. People routinely die rushing to save someone who foolishly waded into fast-moving water a few yards above a waterfall. The rescue is...

Self-Reinforcing Self-Delusion of Econometric Models The world is complex. Too complex to model. Assumptions must be made. Is the exclusion of permanent shocks to the economy a reasonable one? Rational? Plausible? Acceptable? And yet econometricians -- with their hands on the wheel mind you -- say it is! That iceberg dead ahead? Not part of the model. Jeff Snider, Head of Global Investment Research for Alhambra Investments with Emil Kalinowski, an innuendo. Artwork by the Unit Root, David...